Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou
Dimitri Alexandrou
Duke Univ., Dept. of Elec. Eng., Box 90291, Durham, NC 27708-0291
The objective of this work is seafloor characterization using a method that takes advantage of the statistical properties of bottom reverberation and employs maximum-likelihood estimation to obtain estimates for the seafloor parameters. The Helmholtz--Kirchhoff model for backscatter is here used to link the angular dependence of backscattering strength to the correlation properties of the seafloor roughness. The suggested estimation procedure is applied on simulated backscatter data and on real data recorded over Horizon Guyot and Magellan Rise by the bathymetric system Sea Beam. The real data estimation results are compared to curve fitting estimates acquired by the same data sets presented by Moustier and Alexandrou [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 522--531 (1991)]. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research, Code 1125GG, through Contract No. N00014-93-I-0049.]